


Red Lightning

by IndianSummer13



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Denial, F/F, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 08:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13947276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndianSummer13/pseuds/IndianSummer13
Summary: She doesn’t know exactly what she’d expected, given the way they’d left things at Pop’s, but it wasn’tthis..Or, Cheryl Blossom is the epitome of denial, and Toni’s patience is rapidly waning.





	Red Lightning

**Author's Note:**

> I was low-key shipping these two until the latest episode. Now I can't get enough.

They don’t exchange numbers. Toni knows where to find Cheryl ( _ everyone _ knows where to find Cheryl) and of course, even if the redhead didn’t know which trailer was hers, she’d have the power to find out. 

No, they part with a nod, genuine smiles, and a squeeze of the hand that makes Toni think of silk sheets and soft, soft feathers. Her bike roars into life and she tightens the helmet at her chin. The street lamp casts the delicate shadow of a swaying skirt; of tumbling curls and a pair of legs that should be outlawed, but eventually, it grows too long and thin and blurred to stare at.

She flicks up the kick stand with the toe of her boot and speeds in the opposite direction.

 

.

 

She lingers in the school parking lot. Other than when it comes to ice cream, Toni doesn’t linger on  _ anything. _

Except, it turns out, on  _ her. _

The sun, which has barely made more than a tentative effort at beating the clouds, finally admits defeat and hides deep beneath a stretch of dark, ominous grey. The wind picks up but Cheryl’s car doesn’t take up its spot beside the school’s graffiti-less signage.

“Hey Toni!” yells Sweet Pea. “You waiting for someone?”

Faintly, she registers the bell piercing the air, and then a spot of rain lands heavily on her face. The ink of her literature notes smudges and she shields the paper against her chest.

“No,” she replies. “No I’m not.”

 

.

 

Twenty minutes into their shared literature class, she arrives. Toni is explaining the symbolism of the conch -  _ Lord of the Flies _ has been less torturous a read than she’d initially assumed - but her words falter as the door opens and in she walks, head held regally high. 

Not once does her gaze flicker anywhere but the empty seat two desks behind, and Toni feels a stab of disappointment in her chest. 

“Carry on, Miss Topaz,” the teacher instructs. “Don’t let Miss Blossom’s untimely arrival spoil this discussion.”

Too late, she thinks, when all that’s in her mind now is red. Red lips. Red hair. Red hot flames licking through her veins. 

“I’m done,” she replies, but decides she’s not done. Not at all.

(At least, not with whatever got started in that movie theatre)

 

.

 

The cafeteria is loud, but she hears the punctuation of each clack of stiletto heels on the tiled floor above everything else. Toni watches as her eyes search for something - or some _ one _ maybe, and a jolt of what might be hope or excitement or another useless feeling shocks through her. And then her eyes settle at their table - on  _ her _ \- and so she raises her hand in a wave.

Cheryl swallows, blinks in a way that looks forced, and turns her head towards the table of girls who make up Riverdale High’s cheerleading squad. Her heels clack in hypnotic rhythmic succession, and swallowing her bite of apple suddenly seems near impossible.

She doesn’t know exactly what she’d expected, given the way they’d left things at at Pop’s, but it wasn’t this.

 

.

 

The following day, she makes a decision. Jughead catches her practising a round off on the strip of grass outside of her trailer. 

“Training for the Olympics?” he jokes, but it isn’t funny.

“Someone bet me I couldn’t still do these,” she lies. “Just wanted to prove I could.”

He grins a little and then shrugs. “Seems pretty pointless without a witness.”

“You’re here aren’t you?”

“I guess,” he says, and continues along the track to his own front door. Toni waits for him to disappear from sight and then tries her hand at the splits. 

Later, she digs out her gym shorts and an old Southside High t-shirt, and shoves them into her bag for the morning. When she wakes, it’s with regret that she hadn’t stretched properly. 

Still, she showers, pulls on a pair of black jeans, a black t-shirt and then her Serpents jacket. It should be enough of a visual - Serpent to Vixen - to prove her point.

 

.

 

“What is this?” Cheryl snaps, gesturing with her manicured hand at Toni’s presence in the locker room. 

“I’m trying out.”

“We’re not holding auditions.”

“Great,” she returns. “An automatic in.”

“There is no _ automatic  _ anything here!” she replies indignantly. Her chest is rising and falling rapidly though, and despite the level tone of her voice, she’s obviously rattled.

Good, Toni thinks. Payback. 

“Weren’t you just saying the other day that we needed someone else?” Betty asks. 

The look of utter disgust on the captain’s face only serves to strengthen the smirk breaking out across her lips. She raises her eyebrow and silently reminds herself to curb the ponytail jokes. 

“Can you even cartwheel?” Cheryl asks, then inspects her nails as though she couldn’t care less about the answer. 

“I can do way more than that,” she replies, peeling off her jacket. 

No sound leaves those perfectly painted lips for a few moments, but then, as she’s switching her black t-shirt for her old Southside High one, an order for everyone to head into the gym to warm up is barked out. 

From the thickness of the air, Toni can tell that Cheryl hasn’t joined them. 

“What’re you doing?” she questions, those dark eyes of hers narrowed and suspicious. Toni removes her jeans and decides not to comment on the way her pupils swallow much of the remaining brown: she’s not a gloater.

“Had to get your attention somehow.”

The words are very low - almost inaudible - but as she exits the locker room, she thinks she hears, “You already had it.”

 

.

 

It should be illegal, Toni thinks, for Cheryl to smell like she does. Like spice and chocolate - Champurrado maybe - with an undertone of sweetness that’s equal parts surprising and, after what she’d learned over milkshakes, blatant. 

(All of those hard edges are obviously carefully contoured onto nothing but softness)

“Can I give you a ride home?” she asks, closing her locker. It’s just the two of them left (again, she’d lingered, much to her own disgust) and she just wants to keep talking - even if it’s trivial. A conversation about cheerleading uniforms would be preferable to silence.

“I have a car.”

That’s a lie - there is no red convertible parked anywhere on site. “ _ Right. _ ”

Cheryl’s eyes drop down to the strip of exposed skin between the hem of her sweater and the waistband of her jeans. Her bottom lip disappears between her teeth: a stark contrast of red and white.

It makes Toni’s pulse spike.

“I’m leaving now,” she says. And she does.

 

.

 

The heavens open as she’s securring her helmet. Before she’s even left the parking lot, the rain has soaked through her clothing and she thinks immediately of Cheryl and her skirt; the red cape with no hood; patent heels; immaculately placed curls.  

Instead of turning left out of the parking lot towards the south side, she makes a right. 

A little way past the crossroads, she spots her. Her cape has been darkened by the rain to almost a burgundy, and despite the relentless pounding, her head is still held high, gaze pinned ahead.

Toni rides a couple yards in front of her and then stops, the engine still running. She pulls off the helmet, holds it out and says,

“Get on.”

“No.”

She blinks away the droplets from her eyelids but doesn’t move. “You’re freezing.”

“So?”

“So just let me take you home.”

She turns at that, the same expression in her eyes that’d been there at Pop’s. Panic. Vulnerability. 

“Why?”

Because she wants to feel her arms around her waist. Because she wants to feel her breath on the back of her neck. Because, although it initially appeared that Cheryl had shut the door on whatever _ this _ is completely, it turns out there’s the smallest of cracks waiting to grow wider.

“So you don’t catch a cold.”

There’s a pause, and Toni thinks she might be relenting. But then, “My immune system is in peak condition.”

She kills the engine, flicks out the kickstand, and climbs off. 

And then she presses her lips to Cheryl’s, rain spilling down her cheeks and nose, and discovers that she tastes like she smells: cinnamon and chocolate. 

“Let me take you home,” she says again on the same breath that she exhales. 

No words. Just a nod as her fingers tighten around the helmet and her lips close again. 

Once Toni feels a warmth against her back, she waits for hands to tighten around her waist. When they don’t, she reaches behind her to place them there herself, and forces a steadying breath of out her mouth before flipping the kickstand up again.

They don’t carry on in the direction from before. Instead, she makes a u-turn and heads straight for Sunnyside.

Perhaps surprisingly, there is no protest.

 

.

 

When she pulls up outside, the trailer is empty. (The trailer is  _ always _ empty) The rain is still pouring and she hears the unmistakable squelch of an expensive shoe sinking into muddy grass.

She unlocks the door, eyes taking in the A4-sized rectangle where the eviction notice used to be - now simply a reminder that the sunlight used to stream through the town before winter staked its claim. 

There’s a tumbling feeling in Toni’s stomach when she turns to see Cheryl not fixated on the tired interior like she expects, but on  _ her.  _

“Let me get you a towel,” she says quickly. 

In the bathroom, she glances at the mirror: the neat waves her hair had been set in earlier in the day have now given way to wild curls and she takes the two towels from the rail before she can linger long enough to wonder whether she should pull them into an elastic. 

In the living room, Cheryl is shivering in her dripping cape. 

“Here,” Toni offers, wrapping the towel around her body and drawing the edges in together. She’s close enough to feel the warmth of her breath; close enough too, to hear how rapidly it’s coming. 

When she holds together the edges of the towel for her to take, their fingers slip together, both cold, both wet, but somehow all she can feel is burning. 

This time, Cheryl kisses  _ her.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr at @itsindiansummer13
> 
> Comments are always HUGELY appreciated.


End file.
